Semih Sayginer was born on the 12th of November 1964 in Adapazari as the 5th of 6 brothers and sisters. He lost his father Faruk,a tailor, and his mother Sureyya  in a tragic traffic accident. Even though he had a successful school life, Sayginer had to leave the high school in the first year because of the death of his parents but soon he took the entrance exams again and won the Electricity section of Industrial Professions High School . Experiencing some psychological problems after the loss of his parents, Sayginer had to leave his school once more. It was during this period that he met billiards on an advice from one of his friends.

Finding the friendship and love he had been missing in this community, he overcame all the difficulties in life thanks to the billiards and started gaining great success at his young age. He started playing billiards at the age of 16 and soon he attracted the attention of important players with his superb performance. He attended the Istanbul Championship with the insistence of one of his friends, Tezcan, and he won the championship.His reputation soon spread all throughout the country and he started receiving invitations to tournaments and important events. Although he had many achievements, he decided to keep billiards as a hobby only cause he wasn't able to make a living from it. He started working at his brother's contractor company. After completing his military service in 1986, he realized that he couldn't do without billiards and came back to Istanbul . Starting to work at a billiard room, he found the opportunity to earn money and practicing billiards at the same time. In an international exhibition tournament held in Istanbul in 1988, he gained confidence with the performance he showed against world stars and aimed to carry his achievements to the international arena.

He attended several international tournaments until 1992 and had his first major success when he beat the living legend World Champion Raymond Ceulemans 3-0 in Germany .
After this achievement, in 1993 he rose to the 6 th place in World ranking. After his accomplishments in international stage, billiards became a sports branch in Turkey with a Federation and spread quickly.